French aerospace journal “Air et Cosmos” and British defence media group Jane’s have both reported that the Indonesian government has approved the purchase of five Airbus A400M military airlifter aircraft. Both cite local Indonesian media as the source of the information. According to the French publication, the deal will be worth $2-billion.

“Air et Cosmos” points out that this makes Indonesia the second export client for the A400M, after near neighbour Malaysia. The publication speculated that Malaysia’s experience with the aircraft may have influenced Jakarta’s decision. Malaysia ordered four A400Ms, three of which have now been delivered.

Furthermore, the journal noted that Indonesia has extensive experience with other Airbus defence products, operating both the CN235 and C295 light/medium transport aircraft. Indeed, the CN235 was originally developed as a joint project between Spain’s CASA (now part of Airbus) and Indonesia’s IPTN (now PTDI or Indonesian Aerospace), and is manufactured in Indonesia as well as in Europe. PTDI also manufactures components for the C295 and Airbus’ giant A380 airliner and has assembled C295s for the Indonesian Air Force.

Major components for the A400M are manufactured in South Africa by State-owned company Denel Aerostructures (DAe) and private sector enterprise Aerosud. Originally, South Africa was a partner country in the programme, with an order for eight of the aircraft. But the country cancelled its order in November 2009.

Aerosud produces six work packages for the aircraft. These involve manufacturing various structures for the aircraft, such as the nose fuselage linings, the cargo hold linings, cockpit linings, cockpit rigid bulkhead, the aircraft galleys and also the wingtips.

DAe has three work packages for the programme. These are for the fuselage top shells (each aircraft has two of these, one each in front and behind of the centre wing box);  the wing/fuselage fairings  (the A400M wing/fuselage fairing is the largest single aerostructural part ever made in South Africa); and the manufacture of the ribs, spars and “swords” – or in other words the framework – of the vertical tail plane.